"Hey, Are You Still Writing?"

Or, The Unbearable Loneliness of the Long Distance Novelist

My wife had a Christmas event for her business two weeks ago. At it was a couple we met after moving to Massachusetts, but have since lost touch with (they’re parents now; more evidence that kids ruin everything). In the course of chatting the husband asked if I’m still writing, and what’s going on with that.

“How much time you got?” I said.

I’ve been writing novels intended aimed at traditional publication for about six years. My mistake has been telling people. The problem with sharing that is the expectation it creates. I understand; I thought the same before I learned. If you’re not in the industry you have a certain cluelessness about the process; you write a book, it gets published. Simple, right?

…right?

Actual footage of Alec Shane, literary agent

In February I signed with a new literary agent. He’s highly-regarded and has a tremendous client roster. I still can’t quite believe he took me on. Maybe he was intox. Perhaps his colleagues dared him; a literary She’s All That, only with a 40-something dude in the Rachel Leigh Cook role. Who knows? Either way, he sent my novel to publishers in early March. We received a slew of complimentary rejections. Editors praised my writing (one compared me to Jonathan Lethem!) and the story’s scope. They also indicated they had no idea how to sell it. I get it. The first of an envisioned three-part epic about New York City’s 1990s transformation and the growing power of the NYPD as seen through the lens of the nightclub industry might confound marketing teams.

But then.

In late July, a dream editor indicated they were interested, and asked if the novel was still available (in publishing, houses acquire novels and pay advances to authors; your agent is “selling” your novel). My agent shared this news with the cautionary tagline, “This means nothing, but…”, and told me to stay cool.

I did not stay cool. Whatever the opposite of cool is, I did that. Instantly. Through five projects, two agents, and two novels shopped to publishers, this was the closest I’d come to making the dream happen. I could smell the paperback ARCs. Imagined opening the box holding my first run copies; I blocked shots for the obligatory Insta Reels. Cool was not in the cards.

The editor and I sat down at an industry conference in late August. They let me know the novel was with their publisher (every house has a position of “publisher”; effectively the CEO) and they only run three or four books a year up the chain. We traded ideas and visions for my career, long-term. They told me how their house works. I told them about what I was working on. It went well, I thought. Real well. As advised, I tried to remain cool. My agent and I were told they’d have a decision for us soon.

Time passed. Coolness dissipated.

In November my wife and I went to Paris. While on the Eiffel Tower my agent texted. He was meeting the editor the following week. My novel would be discussed. The message goosed me; I have a history of receiving good news while traveling. France passed in a blur. We flew home. I waited.

They met. The editor and their publisher love the novel, but don’t see it as a debut on account of the difficulty marketing a period piece (J. Todd Scott warned me that might be a problem). But they did see it as a second or third book, and claimed they want to work with me (I say claim because I was the murder police for twenty years, and the work made me an unrelenting cynic; that’s a topic for a future essay). They asked my agent to send my next project over as soon as it’s ready. All of this is positive. All of it except the part about not buying my novel.

At this point in my story the husband had gone glassy-eyed. He wavered, like a diabetic in need of an orange. I let him walk. After all, he’s a father and a small business owner. Has obligations. I’m just a dude pounding on a keyboard. And through six years of agent-hunting, novel-shopping, short story-publishing, minor award-winning, conference-attending, and industry-networking, I still can’t say, “Here’s the title of my novel. It’s in bookstores everywhere.” Because it isn’t.

Yet.

I finished the first draft of my next project yesterday. Its working title is The Indemnified. It’s a contemporary (screw you, visionless marketers!) story about our tenuous relationship with truth and how police work changes everyone it touches. Next week I’ll start revisions. Knock its 105,000 words down to about 80,000. Hopefully find a novel in there. One an editor thinks they can sell.

Cause writing these “I’m still doing the thing” essays is getting old.